Associated Press Photo
By Scott L. - SL Sports Staff
Everyone is excited that football season Is here. Finally.
But as long as it seems to take for the season to get here, it always feels like once we get to the final countdown to Week 1 for college and pro football it really comes at us in a hurry and almost sneaks up on us.
Maybe “sneaking up” isn’t the right description. Perhaps the last week or two before play starts is just overwhelming with all the NFL roster shuffling and a Week 1 college slate that includes almost 100 games.
Whether we are ready or not, the NCAA football season will be in full swing as of Thursday, and after that there is no turning back. There are 21 games scheduled for Thursday, five Friday, almost 70 Saturday and one apiece on Sunday and Monday.
As usual, Week 1 includes many of the “money games” that help fund smaller programs and often end up with those teams limping out of town after losing by 30, 40 or 50 points. But you can be sure the opening weekend also will include some major upsets as the well-coached, highly motivated little guys catch some over-confident, under-prepared goliaths who may not want to put their entire playbook on film off guard.
Although Week 1 certainly will provide more than its share of blowouts, there also are a handful of must-see games featuring big-name programs with hopes of landing a spot in the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff. The good news this year is that no highly ranked team will see its goals and dreams for the season crushed with a bad opening-weekend loss.
In the past, a single loss could prove to be a devastating blow to a team with national-championship hosts. This year, however, with 12 teams qualifying for postseason play, an early loss might potentially benefit a team and coaching staff that is still learning about itself and figuring out what it will take to achieve the ultimate goal.
How that impacts early games remains to be seen, though.
Some coaches and teams may play loose and free and let it all hang out without fearing what one loss might do to their playoff hopes. Other ultra-talented teams that would seem to be virtual locks to qualify for the CFP might hold back a little bit so that they always have something in their back pocket to surprise opponents with as the games take on added importance late in the season.
That uncertainty, along with all the other unknowns that characterize the opening week of any season, make betting on Week 1 college and professional football games a very risky proposition. Sports betting is always risky, but wagering without any data collected for teams as they currently are constructed is even more challenging. This is especially true for college football given the unprecedented player movement the transfer portal has encouraged and the large number of coaching changes that transpire every offseason.
There will be 30 new college football head coaches stalking the sidelines this season, and several of those new faces will be guiding some of the most elite programs.
The retirement of Alabama’s Nick Saban set off a chain of events that sent Kalen DeBoer, who guided last season’s national runner-up Washington, to Tuscaloosa to fill the shoes of a legend. That move in turn sent Jedd Fish, who turned around the Arizona program, to Seattle to take over a Husky program that literally has an empty cupboard following a memorable run to the title game last season.
Jim Harbaugh, the other head coach from that epic championship matchup, departed Michigan as the NCAA rules police continued to circle the program like hungry sharks. Harbaugh bolted for the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers, leaving Sherrone Moore, who guided the team when Harbaugh was suspended late last season, leading the Wolverines going forward. The cupboard in Ann Arbor also wasn’t particularly full as 13 Michigan products were selected in the NFL Draft.
Other name-brand programs with new coaches in addition to Alabama, Washington, Arizona and Michigan include Texas A&M, Michigan State, UCLA, Syracuse, Duke, Boston College, Indiana, Oregon State, Arizona, Houston and Mississippi State.
While we have access to more information than ever before thanks to modern technology and the prevalence of analytics in modern high-level sports, massive coaching changes and player movement renders much of that information useless at this time of year. Sure, player and coach production numbers and tendencies can be transferred in the form of raw data to a new team’s profile, but how representative will those numbers be for programs with new coaches and teams that may have as many as 40 new faces on the sidelines – as well as the teams that had many or most of their key players disappear via the portal?
Of course we can assess which teams have the most experienced players and how productive those players were for their previous programs. We also can use the eye test to determine which rosters have the most talent and to figure out which coaches and coaching styles mesh best with a team’s new roster.
Trust us when we tell you that we’ve been doing all the homework we can on all of this, but what we can’t determine until we see it on the field is how well and quickly a team will come together.
How long will it take for all the new pieces to master a coach’s system and operate at full capacity? Will those pieces fit the coach’s style when the ball is kicked and the whistle blows? How will team chemistry develop – or not develop – based on many factors, including players being in bigger or lesser roles and accepting whatever those roles may be without complaint? How tough will the most-talented teams be? Which less-talented teams will find the perfect blend of personnel, coaching and chemistry to overachieve and compete with the top programs?
There are so many variables and uncertainties, which all combine to make early season football betting extremely difficult.
Can you win? Yes.
But you also can win flipping a coin – and even go on a nice winning streak – but betting big money on the outcome of those coin tosses isn’t likely to be profitable over the long term, and several big losses can add up and leave you in a hole from which you may never recover.
Are we saying not to bet at all? No.
While some people approach sports betting as a means to and – either in hopes of making enough money to possibly change their lives or to provide a nice supplement to their current income – many folks bet for the rush and thrill of having something on the line and winning a few bucks. They bet strictly within their means and are not all that concerned about wins and losses. They bet to enhance the entertainment value of watching the games.
If you’re gambling for entertainment purposes, throwing a few bucks on the big games this weekend for fun or to make a little pizza money is perfectly fine. This is true even for those more serious bettors who are looking for long-term positive returns from their sports wagers. We just strongly recommend to the latter group that they approach this weekend from a perspective of having fun and enjoying the return of college football – and to learn about the teams for future weekends – instead of betting large amounts and hoping to add to their long-term return on investment.
With that in mind, we will not have any college football Superstar or All-Star picks this for Week 1. The same will be true next week for the NFL. In three or four weeks we will have access to enough data to begin recommending bets that have a high probability of winning, and each week our confidence will grow as we continue to receive more and more pertinent information.
But since we know that many of you are interested and would like to try to make a little pizza money this weekend, we are happy to share what we know and what we have learned through our research and the information we have at our disposal, to break down some of the weekend’s games and help you decide which games you might actually want to bet on.
Again, we will not be giving out any “recommended picks,” but instead will provide you with some information and analysis that hopefully will allow you to wager wisely if you decide to “bet at your own risk.”
More to come soon on the games we think may be worth looking at.
Here are some of the games we currently are monitoring:
North Dakota State at Colorado (-9)
Florida Atlantic at Michigan State (45.5 total)
Elon (+24.5) at Duke
Western Michigan at Wisconsin (-23.5 and 55 total)
TCU (-9) at Stanford
UConn at Maryland (-20 and 44.5 total)
Clemson vs. Georgia (-13)
Virginia Tech (-13 and 48 total) at Vanderbilt
Penn State (-8) at West Virginia)
South Dakota State at Oklahoma State (-9.5)
Boise State (-12.5) at Georgia Southern
Nevada at Troy (-8.5)
JMU (-8.5) at Charlotte
Notre Dame at Texas A&M (-2.5)
USC at LSU (-4)
Miami (-2.5) at Florida
Virginia (-18.5) at Richmond
Fresno State (+21) at Michigan
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